Set the Fire
by Pinocchio's J.C
Summary: OneShot. Edward meets Isabella in the dreaming. Please disregard any incorrect spelling, as I didn't have time to edit very well.


Bonjour, mon amis. I look forward to your reviews. Yes, even the flames. The length of time between Edward changing and meeting Bella isn't accurate (at least, I'm not sure if it is), but you'll have to forgive me for any other timeline defects.

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Edward had plenty of time to contemplate his existence while he waited for his 4th period class. 1st period had just begun, and he had no use for French 3. He had spoken the language fluently while he was still living. 

It had been exactly 79 years, 4 months, and 14 days since Edward had experienced the joy of his own heartbeat. Oh, how he wished that he had appreciated his life while he still held it. The enhanced abilities had been exciting in the beginning, but had lost their appeal when the greater horror hit him. What fun was the ability to run faster than the eye can track when he was meant to use it in order to feed on the blood of his one-time fellows? It wasn't fun. It was the exact opposite.

Though he had succumbed to the call of the blood of humans for the first decade or so of his 'half-life', as he called it, he soon lost the ability to blacken the memories, the faces of the dead. The guilt was too much, and he returned to the man---- no, not the man, the _vampire _that had changed him. The one that, by saving him from certain death, had doomed him to almost certain lonliness.

Edward thought that he had accepted, or pretended to accept, that he would never be able to share a **_normal_ **relationship with a _**normal** _woman. Hell, he thought he had _**pretended to accept**_ that nothing about him or his way of life could really be considered normal.

Then, he began to dream. Though few of his kind had the rare ability, dream he did. With each dream, he grew more sure that there was one such out there in the world. One woman who would be his sense of normalcy.

The dreams were never clear, never gave him the true likeness of this elusive person. All he saw was the flow of auburn hair and the glow of moonlight skin. He could lay on the cold ground, between conscious and un-, and trace her progress on a map of her life. Not knowing where she was, but knowing that she was going to love him, and he was going to love her more than he had ever imagined was possible.

Strangely, or maybe not strange enough, was the plea for immortality that rang in his ears. The woman wished, or _would **wish**_ to be as he was. Not for the abilities, not for the _**gift **-- _ha, some gift it was--of living forever, but because she wanted to be _**with him**_ forever. And the oddest not-strange-enough part was that he wasn't dreading forever, for the first time in his _**un**_-life.

He had sworn that he would never torture another with the curse of immortality, had promised himself a thousand times that no one would suffer as he had. Yet, everytime that he woke from the dreams that pushed him out of consciousness he answerwed the as of yet unspoken request in the affirmative. Not immediately, but soon enough.

He part dreaded but mostly welcomed the day when he would meet this girl. The one who would give up her family and her friends and her _**life**_ to love him. The one who would have skin that rivaled that of his kind in it's color, and hair that would put the most vibrant shade of red to shame. The one with the voice filled with music, the one that begged him to _change me . . . Please, change me Edward . . ._

_I find a map and draw a straight line_

_over rivers, farms, and state lines_

_the distance from a to where you'd be_

_it's only fingerlengths that I see_

_I touch the place where I'd find your face_

_my fingers in creases of distant dark places_

_I__hang my coat up in the first bar_

_there is no peace that I've found so far_

_The laughter penetrates my silence_

_as drunken men find flaws in science_

_Their words mostly noises_

_ghosts with just voices_

_Your words in my memory_

_are like music to me_

_I'm miles from where you are_

_I lay down on the cold ground and _

_I, I pray that something picks me up _

_and sets me down in your warm arms_

_After I have travelled so far _

_we'd set the fire to the third bar_

_We'd share each other like an island_

_until exhausted close our eyelids_

_And dreaming, pick up from _

_the last place we left off_

_Your soft skin is weeping_

_a joy you can't keep in_

_I'm miles from where you are_

_I lay down' on the cold ground and_

_I, I pray that something picks me up _

_and sets me down in your warm arms. _

_I'm miles from where you are_

_I lay down on the cold ground and_

_I, I pray that something picks me up . . ._

Edward heard the bell ring for the end of 3rd, and walked into the classrom for the beginning of the next. He

took his seat, turned his head toward the door, and _**fell in love**._

_**It's her**._

A smile bloomed on his face, and as the girl ---_**Isabella Swan**_ --- looked at him, his long dead heart beat. Just

once, but it was _there_.

_. . . and sets me down in your warm arms. _

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_Review, please. Merci Beaucoup._


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